Earlier in the year, the kids wrote letters to President Obama. We mailed them in late January and checked the mailbox daily for weeks. The kids started to get upset that the president hadn’t written back to them. They wondered if the letters had gotten lost in the mail. After about a month of waiting, they forgot all about their letters.
You can imagine their surprise when a large manila envelope arrived on our doorstep. It was too big to put in the box, so the mail carrier propped it against our front door. Luke saw the return address said “The White House” and his eyes widened. He asked his sister, “Do you know who this must be from?”
When she did not answer, he yelled dramatically, “The President!”
Suddenly, the two of them were jumping up and down and screaming.
The kids worked together to tear open the envelope. The letter was addressed, “Dear Students” and was clearly a form letter, but the kids did not seem to notice. They were so excited that the president wrote back to them.
In their minds, the president of the United States read their letters carefully, thanked them for their response, and was probably sitting in the Oval Office crafting a new law based on their ideas.
It warmed my heart to see that the children felt their government cared and listened to them. While I am sure some adults feel the same way, I don’t know any who do.
The best part of the correspondence was a picture of Bo, the Obama family’s dog and a little booklet about a day in his life. My children don’t even like dogs, but they loved the little book. Seeing the White House from a dog’s eye view was right at their level.
So, thank you to the White House staff who took the time to write back to little citizens who care about their country. It made my children’s day and made us all feel so patriotic.
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